Ghostcrawler: Warlock DPS is fine, l2p

Im sorry, but I find a lot of this to be QQ. "I can't top the meters, so it must be my class that's to blame. Now my raid is going to sit me." If you're playing a warlock and your raid is seriously considering sitting you just because you're a warlock, you need to spend some more time doing Internet research. If your raid is considering sitting you because of your personal performance issues, I would also suggest doing some more research.

If you look at some of the PTR parses, there are fights (or at least certain individuals) who are topping the damage meters as Affliction. At the same time, we're not very worried that Destruction is going to somehow vanish. I suspect Demonology's dps is still a little low, but because of their buff they are still going to be somewhat popular in PvE. To be clear, that's not an ideal design and the kind of thing we're trying to move away from, but it's better than Demonology being a dead spec. (By comparison, Subtlety is largely dead in progression-focused raiding, which we consider a much bigger failure.)

And I don't at all mean that there aren't aspects of the warlock class that need improving, and we have already announced some of them coming up for Catalcysm. But all of this "Locks are going to be Sunwelled" is a little overblown. Let's try and focus more on actual mechanic discussions and less "I read that I was bad."

We don't put a ton of faith into highest dps ever ranks or simulation output unless it is very carefully analyzed. Sadly it almost never is. Usually it is just linked or someone says "Simulationcraft shows us as the lowest, etc.")

If you really love analyzing highest dps contests, I would recommend doing something like going to World of Logs and looking at the highest damage done on Heroic 25 Northrend beasts. I suspect you will find a lot of locks high on that list. If you find a few rogues above the locks, or you think there are more rogues overall, I'm not sure that means "locks always lose." I'm also not sure you could get a lot of meaningful data out of looking at 25 normal, given how on farm that is for so many guilds.

Now if you look at something like Yogg, warlocks will be all over that list. We've seen locks high on the PTR runs, but of course the sample size is small and the PTR tends to select either for very progression-oriented guilds and for players just messing around who want to see the content. We'll have better numbers once the sample size is in the thousands.

But again, interpret those lists in context. You can't directly translate "Who was ever able to do the highest dps on a given fight" as "My guild would benefit from swapping me out with another mage." If you aren't doing 8000 dps on Northrend Beasts (and very few of you are, especially heroic) then I don't know how relevant it is that the best hunter in the world does more damage on that fight than the best warlock in the world.

P.S. Those players talking about specific mechanics or concerns they have about the class are doing the kind of thing we want to see in these forums. I don't have the bandwidth to answer every question but I try and hit some of them when I can. If your post pretty much says "We're terrible and Blizzard doesn't care," then that's QQ, and that's not really what we (and I suspect most readers) want to see here.

Q u o t e:
I really don't like the direction you just pushed the thread here, now everyone is over on World of Logs trying to discredit what you're saying about numbers again instead of discussing mechanics. Not much you can do I guess, I just find irony in telling people who link PVP sites like AJ not to do it because mechanics and gameplay (not statistics) are what you want to talk about. At least you didn't post a direct link or I'd have to close this thread. I can do that ya'know?

I knew it was a risk. I was just trying to push players into actually talking and analyzing the numbers instead of just posting them as "true dps." I make the analogy a lot of the thermometer. If you go outside and read a thermometer nailed to the side of your house, it's a pretty safe bet that you now know the actual temperature outside and you only need a value more accurate and precise than that if you are a meteorologist or something. You can't in the same way go to Wow Meters Online or World of logs or Simcraft and accept that number as what your class does or more specifically how you perform individually. That is not to disparage those sites or tools at all. You just have to interpret the data in context and I fear too often players approach the forums with a preconceived conclusion and a desire to have the data support what they want it to support.

Re: Ghostcrawler: Warlock DPS is fine, l2p

Originally Posted by Blackhide

He's right btw...

hes right that lock are under every other pure dps class and 2 hybrids, have the highest threat generation, have no aggro reset (soulshatter is bad), no "oh shit" buttons like mages (blink / iceblock / mirror -3 lol)

Originally Posted by MildCorma

I found myself in a magical setup the other week and my damage dropped through the floor like a 90 year olds tits

Re: Ghostcrawler: Warlock DPS is fine, l2p

Originally Posted by Marithas

hes right that lock are under every other pure dps class and 2 hybrids, have the highest threat generation, have no aggro reset (soulshatter is bad), no "oh shit" buttons like mages (blink / iceblock / mirror -3 lol)

QQmoar pl0x. Nab... Warlocks are fine.

Most classes spend their entire /played time wondering if they made a difference.
Paladins don't have that problem.

Re: Ghostcrawler: Warlock DPS is fine, l2p

I laughed so hard at him calling most warlocks bad.

The reason I bring up good guilds a lot really is this: these guilds are often phenomenally better than the average guild. They aren't 5% better. They are hundreds of percentage points better. Therefore, obsessing over a 5% buff for your class won't affect your success rate nearly as much as improving your game. I'm not terribly sympathetic to arguments that you can't improve your group's performance at all, and if that's really the case (which I find unlikely), why are you worried about hard modes anyway? The normal modes of raids are designed to be completed by most groups with any interest in raiding. Most of these players would barely detect a 5% buff or nerf to stamina. They will get far more out of making sure Demo Shout or Curse of Elements are up 100% of the time or even swapping their gems.

That's the real gem though. Calling everyone bad. Sadly it's true.

Nom Nom Nom [NNF] (2 points) - When you Ferocious Bite a target at or below 25% health, you have a 50/100% chance to instantly refresh the duration of your Rip on the target.

Re: Ghostcrawler: Warlock DPS is fine, l2p

Originally Posted by Marithas

hes right that lock are under every other pure dps class and 2 hybrids, have the highest threat generation, have no aggro reset (soulshatter is bad), no "oh shit" buttons like mages (blink / iceblock / mirror -3 lol)

While I don't know your raid situation, our raiding locks are doing on par dmg as our mages. The other things are survivability/threat management, which are indeed terrible for a lock. But from my experience, especially as destro, dmg is easy. I was doing 3k in heroics as a fresh level 80 destro.

Re: Ghostcrawler: Warlock DPS is fine, l2p

Originally Posted by Marithas

hes right that lock are under every other pure dps class and 2 hybrids, have the highest threat generation, have no aggro reset (soulshatter is bad), no "oh shit" buttons like mages (blink / iceblock / mirror -3 lol)

Speaking of threat generation, if you didn't get the memo, threat reducing talents will be doubled come 3.3, soulshatter is no more resistable and Fel Armor will no longer cause healing threat.

Re: Ghostcrawler: Warlock DPS is fine, l2p

Originally Posted by Blackhide

While I don't know your raid situation, our raiding locks are doing on par dmg as our mages. The other things are survivability/threat management, which are indeed terrible for a lock. But from my experience, especially as destro, dmg is easy. I was doing 3k in heroics as a fresh level 80 destro.